The Journey to Contemplative Photography

This is a brief account of my journey to contemplative photography.

Habits, once firmly established, are difficult to change. This is true for the way we have learned to see as well. The lifelong conditioning we have undergone goes very deep and remains unchallenged because we take it for granted. We believe our way of seeing is the right way to see the world around us and if challenged we defend our position as if it were the absolute truth. As a consequence much of our photography has become standardized, lacking freshness and vitality.

Myself, I have struggled with this journey to contemplative photography for a couple of years and I find it is a process that has no ending and feels always new. The best I can do is to recognize the barriers to seeing and allow them to go away. It can not be done in one clean sweep.

One of my first flashes of perception is still vivid. The moment of the flash was shattering and energizing at the same time.

What it revealed I found to be horrible and ugly – not at all what I expected and not at all what I would have chosen to photograph. Initially I reacted by not wanting to have anything to do with this kind of photography. My aesthetic sensibilities were severely offended and tested. It felt like I had tapped into something that had been imposed on me, that was not me nor mine.

This moment of being present or what is often referred to as a flash of perception, is a momentary loss of the self or a momentary loss of the conditioned way of seeing. What it reveals may not be always pleasing to the eye and I rejected it initially because it undid what I felt I had accomplished in the past. It is painful to let old habits die and start afresh.

A left-over of this initial experience of seeing directly is the following: Frequently I trip over something that my mind quickly tries to dismiss as being unimportant or not worthwhile to bother with. More and more I have payed attention to these hints and when they do occur I stop myself and go back to what I was about to reject and stay with it quietly as long as it takes until there is a resolution. The resolution is either connecting intimately with my perception or  to just go on and let it be.